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Q:
Car seems to misfire after running out of gas.

asked by
Jon M
on
November 15, 2016

I ran out if gas yesterday(my gauge is broken). I had some one pick up a gas tank of 2 gallons to put in my car. After I out the gas in I started the car and it started rough and was idling rough so I let it sit for a minute or two then drove to the nearest gas station. I figured it would get better by today but it hasnt and now I'm. Little worried.
The service engine soon light is blinking at like 30-50 mph. Was wondering if you could help direct me towards what's happening.

My car has 180000 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.

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In today’s modern vehicles, running a vehicle completely out of fuel can be damaging (if not catastrophic) to your vehicle’s fuel pump. As you may know, the fuel pump relies on the fuel running through it in order to maintain cool. When the pump is run dry as in the case of running the car out of fuel, this causes the pump to generate an excessive amount of heat and often times causes it to fail. It may be possible that your fuel pump has not completely failed, but is not pumping fuel to its capacity causing a low fuel pressure causing a misfire. I would recommend having an expert from YourMechanic come to your location to diagnose and replace or repair your fuel pump.

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